


take me home, country roads

by CheapNightmares



Series: Quiet Country [3]
Category: Jeepers Creepers (2001)
Genre: Creeper doesn't die (he Cannot obviously) but it's..., Gen, I literally cried while writing it, M/M, Other, it's beautiful and it's heart breaking and it's just, original creeper interpretation by pohocounty on tumblr, original oc by me on rotttnapple, seventy-two years together, tearing up now just thinking about it, this is...the saddest thing I've ever written, trigger warning for THE SHATTERING OF MY OWN HEART
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 05:23:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20522648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheapNightmares/pseuds/CheapNightmares
Summary: After a lifetime together, the boys enjoy one last quiet afternoon on the porch.





	take me home, country roads

**Author's Note:**

> Part 3 of the Quiet Country series, when mortals grow old and ancient gods must say goodbye.

“Can you take me out on the porch for a spell, darling?”  
An old voice, soft and dusty, still smiling in it's age. Dulu nods his reply, making that long lean down (his back gives a twinge, he makes no complaint) to pick up a body as light as a crow. Frail bones and paper-thin skin. Charley rests a head gone white as the snow atop the mountains against Dulu's strong chest, arthritis bunched hands folded in his lap. There is no pain, his mind is clear, he knows his time is near and he would like to look out on their land one last time.  
Dulu carries him through the house full of their life, art and artifacts, photos of marches and causes and lost children they called their own long since grown. Photos of children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Christmas cards and birthday cards. Celebrations of old festivals with old friends, some as ancient as Dulu, campfires and bonfires. Dulu nearly invisible, covered in kittens. Dulu with his arms full of a litter of mutt puppies. Dulu and Slaughter. Snapshots papering the fridge, selfies that spanned long years, good years and hard years, fences repaired and roofs replaced. Their old home, it's walls warm, full of laughter and love.  
Dulu is careful setting Charley down in his rocker, it's wood worn smooth from a thousand, a hundred thousand touches. The boards underneath show the movement of that rocker, neat grooves in the cedar wood. There's a willow tree out there in the yard, full of corn and pumpkins and flowers, it's trunk a broad expanse, planted some sixty years past. Dulu's settling that quilt over Charley's lap now too, the old man that was once a young man gets chilled so easily now, even in the heat of the summer. Charley doesn't rock now, he's too fragile for that, but when Dulu settles down next to him, he lays a hand on that broad forearm. Dulu can feel the ponderous beat of Charley's heart in his fingertips.  
“Seventy-two years.” Charley murmurs. Dulu nods again, daring a low, chuffed grunt. He doesn't dare say too much, as little as he speaks. There's a strange sting in the back of his eyes, dark brown, the color of fresh turned earth. No, he doesn't dare say too much.  
“You're going to keep this place going?” Another nod from Dulu, the smallest little grunt. There's a thickness in the back of his throat now, he tries to swallow it down and finds that it won't budge. Not one bit.  
“And brush your teeth.” A big orange cat slowly, carefully, reaches out with one paw to tap at Charley's blanketed lap. With exceeding care she moves the rest of her mass there, settling down and purring soft and deep. There's snow around Poppy's whiskers too, it's been many long years since Dulu had taken her out of the tree amid the raging floodwater, Poppy and her three tiny kittens, trapped up there in the fork of an elm with the water rising fast below them. Out there on the farm a small herd of deer meander past a tom turkey (he ruffles his feathers and gobbles fetchingly to no avail), nibbling as they go.  
“Y-yeah.” Dulu manages to speak, just a little. His voice is lower, gruffer than it usually is. Charley doesn't mind, he rests his other hand on Poppy's warm orange coat.  
Dulu knew man's time was finite, he had known it for as long as he had walked this earth. He knew this would hurt, but it still didn't prepare him for the pain. It had been coming a while, little signs here and there. Sometimes Charley would wake him, ask if he wouldn't mind checking on Slaughter out in the barn – Slaughter, long since buried, still Dulu would yawn and stretch and walk out to the barn where new eyes glowed in the darkness. Assure Charley, in his way, that the cat was just fine so his partner could rest without worry. Ask him if he's fed the goats, Dulu knowing he's talking about Speedy the First and her companion Peaches, also gone many, many summers now. Man's time was finite, but it didn't help that lump in his throat any.  
Seventy-two years. They'd had a long life together, a good one.  
Two old friends, two old life partners, two old men, sit together on the porch as they had sat thousands of times before. Listening to the peace-noise of the farm. Guinea fowl and chickens, ducks and geese, goats and donkeys and turkeys and crows. Crows landing in thick blankets on the barn roof, weighing down the branches of trees. Crowding the perches in the corn, lining the fence.  
Dulu realizes he can no longer feel Charley's heartbeat in his fingertips. No longer hears the slow, ponderous draw of his breath.  
Dulu can't stop the heavy, braying sobs that spill out of him like thunder. The crows take flight all at once, and for a moment they block out the sun.

Dulu digs the grave with his hands, it's more efficient than the shovel. Great big scoops of black dirt, one after another, until the pile looms over his kneeling figure. He pats the bottom smooth, not wanting any rocks poking at his friend. Pats it real smooth before he stands (knees popping like firecrackers, he's not so young himself, hasn't really replaced nothing these past few years) and takes slow, even steps back to the house where Charley rests in his funeral shroud, a bunch of snapdragons – daughters and sons of that first one, the very first one seventy years ago – resting on his chest, over where his heart once beat so strong and young. A heart that now rested next to his, so carefully wrapped. There was just some things Dulu didn't want Charley to see. 

Out there among the graves, of crows, of dogs and cats, goats and birds and deer, some that didn't make it farther than their infant days and some that lived well into their golden years, Dulu takes the earth and lays it down one hand at a time. Gently patting it down, settling it around, over, until the grave is filled again. He plants flowers atop it, flowers that Charley loved.

Later he'll set a great, ancient river stone at the top. A guardian stone, Charley's name written in the old tongue, but first he has something else to do. Something Charley had asked him to do, many years ago.

For the first time in a timeless age Dulu isn't sure he'll be able, not with that thick lump sticking in his throat still, but he swallows the heart well enough and it joins the beating of countless others. For a while, Charley allows the man his space. He gives Dulu his time to grieve. 

Charley's young again, still so full of life even in death, there to remind Dulu to brush his teeth, showing him how to thread the sewing machine so his clothes don't fall to tatters all over again. He's there in the comforting touch of a hand resting on Dulu's arm, there and not there all at once. Charley's voice is gentle as he tells Dulu which vials to use, how to draw blood, how to give shots, how to mix the formula just right. Which formula is right because there's so many different kinds in the cupboards now for all manner of animals in need. He's there to help him change bandages and splint wings, he's there to remind him to be careful. 

Charley's there, rocking his chair again, mindful of kitten paws and kitten tails. Laughing with him, still pulling those booming belly laughs out him like a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat, singing songs so old they're all but forgotten when Dulu settles his guitar in his lap and plays the tunes. Wishing him sweet dreams every night, nagging him to eat breakfast every morning. Gone from life and yet immortalized in death.

When I'm gone, Dulu, I'd like you to take a little piece of me.  
Take a little piece of me, I don't want you to ever be alone again.


End file.
